not really. though jason really encourages it with a passion that makes me wonder about what goes on in the dark depths of his mental sexual dungeon. ;) i had the pleasure (no pun intended) of writing about a kiss in my last chapter. it was SO FUN! i can now understand why laurell k. hamilton, who used to write about murder and mayhem among supernatural creepy crawlies, now writes about multiple orgasms with multiple partners. i mean, if writing a kiss was that much fun, how fun is it going to be to write actual sex?!?
the feeling was quite similar to the feeling i get when writing fight scenes (of which i have had two major ones now). what is the lesson to be learned here, grasshopper? writing ACTION is more stimulating to the author, or this author anyway, than descriptive or expository writing. don't get me wrong. i love descriptive writing, almost to a fault. but writing action, whether it be sexual or violent, provides a thrill that is somehow akin to the real thing. i don't know if that's because it brings to mind your memories of those things, or if imagining the acts pokes around in those areas of the brain that live next door to the hippocampus. either way, whether it's a character's fist making contact with someone's face, or a character's mouth making contact with someone's neck, writing an intense action scene is an awesome experience.
i can't wait until my next one... which unfortunately is probably a few chapters away as my heroine has some detecting to do. we must solve the mystery, not go around fucking and fighting everything that walks!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
oh, oh, oh! or... i'm a dumb shit
instead of thinking about my book, i thought about thinking about my book, and how i don't do it as much. and i was like... why not? and then i fucking realized what the fucking problem is. sorry about the profanity, by the way. i cuss when i'm happy, mad, sad or otherwise excited. anyway. the PROBLEM is that i am not READING ANYTHING. sure, i read the paper, i surf my favorite sites. but when did i finish my last full BOOK? i've started a couple of crappy ones, and not finished them. i think the last book i read from cover to cover was.... ugh. janet evanovich's 12 sharp. and before that, i think it was the kelly armstrong books IN SEPTEMBER. yes, that's right. IN SEPTEMBER. which is not to say that i haven't been looking for new good books. i have been. all the time. but i haven't found any. i've been prowling the library like a wild animal, accruing overdue fines on books that are too crappy or uninteresting to read. THAT'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM.
all writers know that what makes them writers is that they are first and foremost readers. over the summer, when all my favorite authors were releasing books like literary ho's, i was reading 4-5 books per week. none of my favs have released anything since september or so, and none of them will until march. march, i say! why do all my favs come out in the spring and summer?!?! why do they make me wait?!?! i've read all your old stuff! write faster! my writing depends on it!
all writers know that what makes them writers is that they are first and foremost readers. over the summer, when all my favorite authors were releasing books like literary ho's, i was reading 4-5 books per week. none of my favs have released anything since september or so, and none of them will until march. march, i say! why do all my favs come out in the spring and summer?!?! why do they make me wait?!?! i've read all your old stuff! write faster! my writing depends on it!
sheepish
umm...well, it's been over a month since i posted here. i was rather hoping that it had been less than a month. a month is a nice round, arbitrary number. less than = no guilt. more than = guilt. so, here i am, posting and feeling guilty and sheepish.
i don't know why i didn't post for so long. it's been an eventful time. i won a week in that contest, ironically the week after i posted about it. i'll find out this weekend if i'm in the top three or not. also, the furry one and i got engaged. no big surprise there, but it's nice. and so's my ring ;) i printed out a draft of my novel so far -- 160 pages, 70,000 words. i figure i've got about another hundred pages to go, which is ten weeks if i work at a chapter per week pace.
the book has been giving me some trouble lately. why is it that i only post about the trouble? i don't post about all the times that i get a warm fuzzy from writing, the times when i have the writer's equivalent of a brain orgasm because what i'm writing feels that damn good to me, the times i send off my chapter to margarita with satisfaction and pride.
nope, you don't get to hear about that. you get to hear about the tough times, the struggles, the blocks. right now, i'm in a block PERIOD. earlier in the fall, i was writing a chapter a week. since the beginning of november, i think it's been a chapter every two weeks. traumatizing. part of the problem is that i'm paralyzed by the thought of the agent search process. i'm already thinking about query letters and editing and hooks even though i've not finished a draft. luckily, margarita has helped exorcise that demon from my mind, and i'm not thinking about it. as much. i'm still thinking a lot about editing, but that's because i've changed a basic premise of the book, so i'm going to need to do some editing when the first draft is done. i KNOW KNOW KNOW i have to wait until it's done because if i wait to finish it until i've edited everything i need to edit, i won't ever get it done. i'm also having insecurity problems, doubting the readability of both my writing and my story. i'm worried that my main characters won't hold a reader's interest the way they hold mine. the only thing that's keeping me together is a line i read in stephen king's book "on writing." to paraphrase: the first draft of a novel is you telling the story to yourself. the second draft of a novel is you telling the story to someone else. i'm living for the second draft, and i think that's bad, because i'm only 2/3 of the way through on the damn book. i'm not giving it all of my attention, and i think it's coming through in both the length of time it's taking me to write and the product i'm writing.
i think to some extent writing is like losing weight. not that i've been too successful at maintaining the latter, but i've probably lost over 150 pounds if you add all my diets together over the years, so i know what it takes to be successful at taking it off if not keeping it off. anyway, you can think and you can plan and you can make charts and journals and all that shit. in the end, the only thing that matters is getting off your ass and DOING it. preparing healthy food. going to the gym when all you want to do is sleep. sitting in front of the computer and typing even when you're drenched with apprehension and worry. get. it. done. or, as my southern friends might say... git 'er dunn!
i don't know why i didn't post for so long. it's been an eventful time. i won a week in that contest, ironically the week after i posted about it. i'll find out this weekend if i'm in the top three or not. also, the furry one and i got engaged. no big surprise there, but it's nice. and so's my ring ;) i printed out a draft of my novel so far -- 160 pages, 70,000 words. i figure i've got about another hundred pages to go, which is ten weeks if i work at a chapter per week pace.
the book has been giving me some trouble lately. why is it that i only post about the trouble? i don't post about all the times that i get a warm fuzzy from writing, the times when i have the writer's equivalent of a brain orgasm because what i'm writing feels that damn good to me, the times i send off my chapter to margarita with satisfaction and pride.
nope, you don't get to hear about that. you get to hear about the tough times, the struggles, the blocks. right now, i'm in a block PERIOD. earlier in the fall, i was writing a chapter a week. since the beginning of november, i think it's been a chapter every two weeks. traumatizing. part of the problem is that i'm paralyzed by the thought of the agent search process. i'm already thinking about query letters and editing and hooks even though i've not finished a draft. luckily, margarita has helped exorcise that demon from my mind, and i'm not thinking about it. as much. i'm still thinking a lot about editing, but that's because i've changed a basic premise of the book, so i'm going to need to do some editing when the first draft is done. i KNOW KNOW KNOW i have to wait until it's done because if i wait to finish it until i've edited everything i need to edit, i won't ever get it done. i'm also having insecurity problems, doubting the readability of both my writing and my story. i'm worried that my main characters won't hold a reader's interest the way they hold mine. the only thing that's keeping me together is a line i read in stephen king's book "on writing." to paraphrase: the first draft of a novel is you telling the story to yourself. the second draft of a novel is you telling the story to someone else. i'm living for the second draft, and i think that's bad, because i'm only 2/3 of the way through on the damn book. i'm not giving it all of my attention, and i think it's coming through in both the length of time it's taking me to write and the product i'm writing.
i think to some extent writing is like losing weight. not that i've been too successful at maintaining the latter, but i've probably lost over 150 pounds if you add all my diets together over the years, so i know what it takes to be successful at taking it off if not keeping it off. anyway, you can think and you can plan and you can make charts and journals and all that shit. in the end, the only thing that matters is getting off your ass and DOING it. preparing healthy food. going to the gym when all you want to do is sleep. sitting in front of the computer and typing even when you're drenched with apprehension and worry. get. it. done. or, as my southern friends might say... git 'er dunn!
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